


Flander's Field

by ProbablyPlatonic



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Drabble, First work - Freeform, I really really poppies, I should be working on my original works, Loss, My First Work in This Fandom, No Romance, No time for fanfiction really, Poetry, Short, best flower ever, poem, recovery???, remember the dead, short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 19:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13488207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablyPlatonic/pseuds/ProbablyPlatonic
Summary: It haunts his vision, everywhere he looks there's the reminder of everything he lost. So why was he searching for it????





	Flander's Field

He told himself it was just a color. Colors are just a reflection of light. Colors aren’t people. Colors can’t speak. Colors don’t have any meaning. Colors were just that. Colors.  
But to Kurapika, red would forever be the color of the Kurta.  
And it was everywhere.  
It was the color of their eyes in moments of emotion, it was the color of the fruit that he had only seen growing around his childhood home, it was Pairo’s favorite color, it was the color of their blood as it seeped from empty eye sockets.  
Now it was the color of a mother’s dress as she walked down the street. It was the color of the ribbons in her small daughter’s black hair. It was a sign on the street, lit up and glowing. It was a stoplight, it was the carpeting, it was a cloud at sunset, someone’s hair in the wind.  
He couldn’t leave it behind.  
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave it behind.  
It was always in the corner of his eyes, staining his sight as it slowly seeped into his vision but Kurapika knew that if he glanced it’s way, if just for a moment, the red would fade away. Red dripped from his hands. Red marked anything he touched. He closed his eyes and saw red. It was all red. Everything was red.  
It was just a color.  
A color that haunted him.  
So, he had to ask himself, if red was following him, why was he searching for it?  
It had come in the form of a flower.  
He had seen it in Senritsu’s hands as she walked into the room, a vivid red that he thought he dreamed. It caught his eye immediately and he couldn’t look away, it was like a spell.  
Senritsu caught him watching. She smiled, a soft smile that made guilt quiver in his stomach. His mother had smiled like that. She held out the flower, that stupid red flower that was everything he couldn’t forget.  
“Flowers speak to us” Senritsu’s voice hovered above a whisper “we just have to listen”  
The silence became a melody between them, Kurapika found himself trying to find the tune of the song. Was it one he knew? Would he know the lyrics before they were spoken?  
If the flower spoke, it wasn’t to him.  
“What does it say?” he finally asked, breaking the silence.  
“It’s a reminder” she pressed the flower into his hand “of the dead. Especially of those who died in battle. It says that there is peace after death”  
The red flower was a liar, but he still held onto it, even after it had withered and died. A reminder of the dead that itself was dead, abandoned in some corner of a desk.  
He couldn’t bring himself to throw it away, but it still had vanished one day, long after it couldn’t even be called a flower anymore. He told himself it was just a flower. A flower didn’t really speak.  
He was after the color, it was red. Red was the color of everything he was afraid to forget.  
The florist had a red sign. There were roses in the window. They were all red. Red. Red. Red.  
The flower he was looking for sat next to some white roses, they caught his eye as soon as he entered, and he forced himself to walk in a beeline towards them. Every step felt like a mile. It was too easy. This was too easy. He was used to having to look harder.  
“You like the poppies?” the florist was a large man, one who looked like he should be lifting cars instead of flowers. His ashy gray hair matched the fact he smelled like smoke “Not many people seem to notice them, but I like the way they look against the wallpaper”  
Kurapika pulled one loose, spinning its stem in his hand “Someone told me they represent the dead”  
The florist nodding, looking as if he was trying to prove he knew everything. Or at least, everything about flowers. “Yeah, they often plant them on the soldier’s graves. They’re more for those who died in battle then your everyday dead person. There’s a poem about it, you know” he paused for a moment before pulling out some lilies “I got lots of lilies, they’re the ones you usually use for the dead, if that’s what would suit your needs more”  
“I think I’ll go with the poppy”  
The man hesitated “Just the one?”  
Kurapika tried to smile, but he knew he just came off as tired “I only need one”  
He left the store with the poppy in hand, and it was red.  
The same red as his anger, the one he feared and hoped would die. It was the color of a dying man’s blood, as his own broken heart betrayed him and somehow found a way to keep pumping until there was nothing left. It was the color of his beginning, it would be the color of his end.  
It was also the color of his mother when she had danced throughout the halls. It was the color of his father as he prayed to a God that Kurapika could only whisper to. It was the color of Pairo, sweet kind Pairo who refused to let go. It was the color of his people, of his home.  
Yes, red was just a color. A color was all he had left.

**Author's Note:**

> In Flanders fields the poppies blow.  
> Between the crosses, row on row,  
> That mark our place; and in the sky  
> The larks; still bravely singing fly  
> Scarce heard and guns below
> 
> We are the Dead. Short days ago  
> We lived, felt dawn, saw the sunset glow  
> Loved, and were loved, and now we lie  
> In Flanders fields.
> 
> Take up our quarrel with the foe:  
> To you from falling hands we throw  
> The torch; to be yours to hold high.  
> If ye break faith with us who die  
> We shall not sleep, though poppies grow  
> In Flanders field.
> 
> -John McCrae


End file.
